Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 8).djvu/174

 almost precisely the same thing as morality. Therefore I say it's absolutely unpardonable of the Messenger to proclaim, day out, day in, the false doctrine that it's the masses, the multitude, the compact majority, that monopolise liberality and morality,—and that vice and corruption and all sorts of spiritual uncleanness ooze out of culture, as all that filth oozes down to the Baths from the Mill Dale tan-works! [Noise and interruptions.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Goes on imperturbably, smiling in his eagerness.] And yet this same Messenger can preach about elevating the masses and the multitude to a higher level of well-being! Why, deuce take it, if the Messenger's own doctrine holds good, the elevation of the masses would simply mean hurling them straight to perdition! But, happily, the notion that culture demoralises is nothing but an old traditional lie. No it's stupidity, poverty, the ugliness of life, that do the devil's work! In a house that isn't aired and swept every day—my wife maintains that the floors ought to be scrubbed too, but perhaps that is going too far;—well,—in such a house, I say, within two or three years, people lose the power of thinking or acting morally. Lack of oxygen enervates the conscience. And there seems to be precious little oxygen in many and many a house in this town, since the whole compact majority is unscrupulous enough to want to found its future upon a quagmire of lies and fraud.

Aslaksen.

I cannot allow so gross an insult to be levelled against a whole community.